When preparing a long-boiled soup, you should first work out the sufficient amount of water required. You should avoid adding water while cooking the soup. This is because any change in water temperature and addition of large amounts of water will affect the taste of the soup. If it is necessary to add water in the middle of cooking the soup in order to prevent the water from becoming dried up, you should add boiled water and do not use tap water.

Dried tangerine peels are often added into the long-boiled soups. As the pith is considered to have damp heat, you should soak the peel in water first, then scrape off the pith before putting it into the soup.

Add a slice of ginger when boiling soup with melon and vegetable. This can reduce the cool nature of the melon and vegetable.

Ingredients should have less fat. Meat and poultry meat should have the fat and skin removed.

Briefly scald meat in boiling water to remove the odd taste, blood stains and fat. This will make the soup clear.

Chicken should be rinsed thoroughly with internal organs, head, neck and the skin removed. Briefly scald the chicken before putting it into the soup.

When preparing a long-boiled soup, put in the ingredients into boiling water. Boil the soup for half an hour in high heat, then simmer in low heat.

When boiling soup, the fat of the ingredients will float in the surface of the soup, do not try to remove the grease in the middle of cooking the soup as this layer of grease may separate the evaporation of the nutrition together with the water. You may remove the grease on the surface of the soup after you have turned off the stove or when the soup cools down.

Put in salt only when the soup is almost ready. In fact, there is taste in the ingredients and unsalted soup can taste good as well.

Long-boiled soups with many ingredients have a high content of salt, sugar and fat, hence it is not advisable to drink every day.

When you add Chinese herbs into a soup, you should first know about the nature of the body of people who will drink the soup and their state of health. You should also know about the efficacy of the herbs and the amount to be used. You should use the right herbs and do not put in herbs as other people are doing so or make up your own prescription according to recommendations. This will avoid causing adverse effect to your body.

Herbs should first be soaked before placed into a soup. For herbs which are hard such as dangshen, American ginseng, and Sanchi, they should first be cut into small slices. Then less time is required to release the flavour of the herbs.

Many people say three hours are need to prepare a long-boiled soup and four hours are required to prepare a stewed soup. Actually, the time required depends on the ingredients used, the amount, the heat and cooking utensils used. There are certain ingredients, for example, green-leaf vegetables, which should not be cooked for a long time. For fish soups, one to two hours would be quite enough.

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